


Inbox (1)

by emmaofmisthaven



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-03
Updated: 2016-10-14
Packaged: 2018-04-18 21:14:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 15,820
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4720679
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emmaofmisthaven/pseuds/emmaofmisthaven
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She knows him, more or less, the way she knows all her mutual followers – the online equivalent of nodding at each other in the hallways – and so knows he particularly likes to reblog seaside landscapes and history posts.<br/>So when she sees the post – nothing but a “charleia, reblog if you agree” that has 8 notes – and sees that it’s coming from him, she can barely hide her surprise. Because, really, what are the odds that some random guy on Tumblr would read the exact same book at the exact same time, only to share her feelings about some obscure couple? The odds aren’t that good, and yet…</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Big thanks to Cee (emmasneverland on tumblr) who is now stepping in as my beta! I also decided to set up a [Patreon account](https://www.patreon.com/emmaofmisthaven?ty=h) because I’m poor af and wouldn’t say no to a little help if you so wish. Everything is explained in the link.

Looking back at it a few months later, Emma blames it all on Ruby.

She moves from Middle of Nowhere, Maine to Boston for college, and is randomly paired with Ruby to share a dorm. When she enters the room, carrying two heavy duffel bags and with her father trailing behind her, she finds herself nose to nose with a pretty brunette who grins at her like the cat that ate the canary. Emma gulps audibly – even if the roommate thing was mandatory, she had hope for a shy, quiet bookworm so she wouldn’t have to do the whole socialising thing. Instead, the ball of energy bounces on mile-long legs in front of her, introducing herself as _Ruby Lucas, biology major, I love your hair, it’s so pretty_ , and Emma says goodbye to whatever she thought college life would be for her.

Instead, she learns everything there is to know about Ruby in more or less five minutes – the girl speaks fast, Emma doesn’t know if she wants to be impressed or scarred for life. That’s basically how she learns that Ruby is somewhat of a big thing online, with hundred of thousands of followers on Instagram (how?) and quite the impressive number on Twitter and Tumblr too.

Emma finds herself agreeing to make an account for each and every one of the social networks, mostly because Ruby has that gleam in her eyes that says she could as well be a serial killer in the making, and Emma quite enjoys living.

It is, as they say, the beginning of the end.

She doesn’t get addicted per se, but she checks her accounts daily and even build a nice little gathering of followers after a while – nothing of the likes of Ruby’s, but Emma doesn’t mind, because Ruby’s number are frightening – and even starts a tentative friendship with a Norwegian girl called Elsa. She learns that Thursday nights are a religious experience in front of the television, otherwise known as Shonda Night, and knows better than to question Ruby on her less than stellar tastes when it comes to shows from The CW.

Ruby becomes her friend, and friends don’t judge each other over their shitty fandoms. Or something. It confuses Emma more often than not, before she goes back to reblogging pictures of cats, beautiful landscapes, and cute gifs of Daniel Radcliffe. It keeps her busy when she’s bored, and she can always pretend she has to work at the library when she doesn’t want to watch one of Ruby’s shows.

It’s early February when Emma comes back to her room to find Belle lounging on Ruby’s bed as she waits for her girlfriend to come back from a lecture. The petite brunette is, unsurprisingly, with her nose in a book, barely looking up to smile at Emma as the blonde plops down on her own bed.

“Watcha reading?” she asks, because Belle always reads interesting books, and Emma ran out of stuff to read a week ago.

“It’s called Heroes and Villains,” she replies, still not looking up. “It came out today.”

And, if the fact that she’s already three-quarter into it is anything to go by, it’s as fascinating as books get. With a groan, Emma leans forwards to grab her laptop on the desk, and opens it as soon as it’s propped up on her stomach. A quick Google search and a read of the summary later, she knows it is the kind of book she wants – needs to read, and she tells Belle so. Belle promises to lend it to her as soon as she’s done, which might as well be in ten minutes, knowing what a fast reader she is.

And indeed, before Belle leaves for her own dorm that evening, she puts the book on Emma’s desk with a smile, before adding a little hand wave. Emma waits until the door closes behind her before she grabs the book, settles on her bed, and opens it to the first page.

Later, much later, she’ll blame it all on Ruby, because she was the one to introduce her to Tumblr, and Belle is her girlfriend. So, really, when it comes down to it, this is all Ruby’s fault. Not that Emma is aware of it right now, because she’s too busy losing herself in the story to care about anything else in the world. It’s been a long while since she’s put an all-nighter over a book – ever since the last Harry Potter book, actually – but she can’t put it down, enthralled in the story as she is. When she finally reaches the last page, with a gasp and a sob at the awful cliffhanger the author gave them, it’s past four in the morning.

She has a lab at eight, and she looks like a mess.

She feels like a mess too, something that hasn’t happened over a book since the last time she pulled an all-nighter to read, and so she spends the morning daydreaming about Leia, strong beautiful Leia and her brave son Henry. Daydreams of their adventures, of their relationship built on love and trust and heartbreaks. Leia and Charles, the coward pirate who helped her on her quest, and Emma would be lying if she says it doesn’t make her a little weak in the knees just thinking about it.

She knows Leia is not the main character of the book, and so her (love) life will not be the focus in the sequel, far from it, but those characters get stuck in her head somehow. It’s been a long time since she’s identified with some random character in some random book, but this one touches a nerve even if she can’t explain why. Too familiar in the way she got hurt by love, too close to home in her insecurities and fears.

Emma is a mess running on three hours of sleep, and she blames it on Ruby when she falls in bed later that afternoon. She can’t quite sleep, though, mind still racing with thoughts and dreams and scenarios, and so she grabs her laptop and opens Tumblr, hoping against hope cat pictures will help her calm down. What it does is the exact opposite.

Her eyebrows shoot up when she sees the post, reblogged by jeweloftherealm. She knows him, more or less, the way she knows all her mutual followers – the online equivalent of nodding at each other in the hallways – and so knows he particularly likes to reblog seaside landscapes and history posts.

So when she sees the post – nothing but a “charleia, reblog if you agree” that has 8 notes – and sees that it’s coming from him, she can barely hides her surprise. Because, really, what are the odds that some random guy on Tumblr would read the exact same book at the exact same time, only to share her feelings about some obscure couple? The odds aren’t that good, and yet…

She reblogs the post with a simple ‘don’t I know it’ in the tags, and then decides to stop fighting her exhaustion as she puts the laptop away and snuggles under the covers.

 

…

 

She wakes up to Ruby throwing her bag on the floor and four asks on Tumblr.

Ruby, she is used to by now – the girl as delicate as a bull and as quiet as a freaking thunderstorm. Actual messages on Tumblr though? Nah. So she frowns at her screen even as she clicks on the little red envelope, and then frowns some more when she sees all four of them are from the same person – all four of them are from jeweloftherealm. She scrolls down to the last one, and immediately her eyebrows shoot up, her eyes widen. A little, albeit hysterical, laugh escapes her lips and has Ruby frowning at her, but Emma ignores her as her eyes remain glued to the screen.

‘oh god you’re into Charleia too please marry me’

‘Alright, that was too bold and forward of me, and I do apologize for the outburst. I won’t even pretend it was meant to be sent on anon, it would only make things sadder than they already are. Please do ignore the previous ask. I hope you have a nice day.’

‘Truth be told we have been following each other for a while now and I was toying with the idea of messaging you for even longer, so hello. Killian, professional disaster, nice to meet you. Feel free to share all your headcanons with me.’

‘Am I doing this all wrong? Bloody hell, I am. Just ignore me, really. No hurt feelings or anything of the like.’

Emma has no idea how to reply to the guy, besides telling him to find some chill he very obviously needs. Instead, she clicks on the link to his blog, if only to know whom she is dealing with. The description doesn’t give her much clue other than his name, age, and location (Killian, 20, London) and he doesn’t have an ‘about me’ page linked anywhere. Not all that helpful to know if she’s dealing with a potential serial killer, or a lunatic.

So she comes back to her askbox, frowns some more, and wonders if she should reply or not. It would be, all things considered, the polite thing to do, even if it’s to gently tell him to back off, you weirdo. Emma has never been one to ignore people on the Internet, and she doesn’t really feel like starting now – her mother taught her better, but her mother also told her to be careful when she talks to strange people online, so there’s that.

Not knowing what to do, Emma goes for the second best option.

“Hey, Rubs,” she calls, and her roommate looks up from her handiwork of applying a new coat of nail polish on her left hand. “Some guy messaged me on Tumblr, I don’t know what to do.”

“Is he cute?” Textbook Ruby. “Check if he has a selfie tag.”

She does. He doesn’t.

In the end, she busies herself for a few hours with the essay she needs to write for her Introduction to Business Law class - a bore, but the kind of boring that keeps her mind from wandering too far, which is exactly what she needs more often than not. It’s time to head down to the dining hall once she’s done and, by the time she’s back in her bed with Ruby watching some ABC show by the other side of the room, she has almost succeeded in forgetting all about jeweloftherealm’s messages.

It, of course, all comes back to her when she opens Tumblr again. She hesitates for a few moments, nails drumming against her laptop, before she throws all cautions to the window. If the guy turns out to be a creep, which she suspects he will, she can always stop replying or even block him. Easy, efficient, no headache. So she wets her bottom lip with the tip of her tongue as she opens her askbox and starts typing out a reply to his first message.

‘All wedding proposals are to be addressed in handwritten form and sent after a three-month long courtship. Sorry, I don’t make the rules.’

And if it has underlying tones of flirting to it, oh well, it is too late to change it once she has clicked on the ‘Send’ button. She rolls her eyes at her own antics as she grabs her headphones on her desk and puts on some music before she gets lost in the never-ending stream of cat pictures and Harry Potter fanarts. She lets the website distract her with its colourful content, until she blinks at the little red envelop that pops up at the top of her screen.

Her eyes immediately move to the clock in the corner, doing the maths of time zones in her head. It’s starting to get late in Boston, so it’s obviously the middle of the night in England, but Emma knows better than to judge other people’s sleep patterns – hers was a mess during finals, after all.

His icon, some random ship on the sea in a flurry of whites and blues, welcomes her when she opens the askbox yet again. It feels strange having it there instead of on her dashboard – feels strange actually talking to him, even with the nonsense of his messages, instead of acknowledging his existence from afar. The Internet is fascinating that way.

‘Dulled noted, love,’ he writes, and she arches an eyebrow at the nickname. ‘Now on to more interesting matters: our runaway princess and dashing pirate. Thoughts? Feelings? Need to beg Isaac Heller on your knees until he gives you the tiniest bit of spoiler as to where those two are heading?’

A small, tentative smile settles on her lips. That, Emma can do – talk about those character who won’t get out of her thoughts, talk about Leia’s bravery, Charles’ devotion. This is an easy subject, far away from the guy’s barely-there innuendos and half-covered flirt attempts. Her fingers fly over the keyboard as she types out her reply, something she hoped to be short and concise, right to the point, but turns out to be the size of a small essay as she goes on and on about this detail and that scene.

She would feel bad or embarrassed about it – then again, she thought those years were behind her after the last Harry Potter movie came out – but this is the guy who proposed to her over one silly text post. If he doesn’t embrace her word-vomit about those two fictional characters, no one ever will.

Once the message is sent, she turns off her laptop, ready to finally catch up on some well-deserved sleep before her afternoon class the following day. She nestles against her pillow, the soft clicking of Ruby’s nails against her keyboard lulling her to sleep in a matter of minutes.

 

…

 

She wakes up to no less than eight messages on Tumblr, and barks out a laugh.

 

…

 

It’s easy to share her Twitter account with him once they are tired of testing the limits of Tumblr’s flawed ask system, and easier still to share her phone number when Twitter’s character limit becomes even more of a pain in the ass. He has a habit of sending her the most random emojis when he’s bored in class, so sometimes she’ll wake up in the middle of the night to her phone blinking, only to find three little cats waiting on her.

Emma stops trying to understand those.

They don’t talk every day, per se, but still regularly enough that he becomes – not exactly one of her closest friends, but close enough. She has no idea what he looks like – his Whatsapp profile picture yet another boat – and only learns a bribe of his life here and there but…

But that’s the way online friendships work anyway, right? They don’t have to share their deepest secrets to trust each other and have fun together, and she can share her silliest, most annoying thoughts with him, knowing it will make him laugh. He’s that good an audience.

‘let’s talk fancasting,’ she sends him one day, when she’s bored out of her mind in her Introduction to International Law class. The subject in itself isn’t half-bad, but Professor Hooper has that kind of voice that has Emma dozing off in about five minutes.

‘I’M GLAD YOU ASKED!’ comes Killian’s reply a few minutes later, capital letters and all. He might be a nerd, but moments like those give Emma a glimpse of something else in him, of a guy who likes the theatrics that come with showing off a bit. Not that she minds. ‘I was at a mate’s house the other day and the show he was watching actually gave me the perfect casting for our dear Leia’

‘did you just use ‘mate’ unironically?’ she asks him, and has to bite down a mocking grin. She’s still in the middle of a lecture hall, after all.

‘hush, swan,’ he replies, having adopted the nickname when he first saw her Whatsapp profile picture. ‘I’m guessing you know fringe?’

Screw the lecture hall, she’s left gaping at her phone like a fish out of the water. The guy sitting next to her gives her a weird look, before shrugging and going back to taking notes – he’s seen weirder things on campus, they all have.

‘Anna Torv?’ she asks Killian, then quickly adds, ‘that’s so fucking perfect I’m actually mad at you for thinking about it first’

He replies with four smirking emojis, just to fuck up with her a little. She pouts, actually pouts at her screen, which is of course useless since he can’t see her anyway. The guy next to her still looks at her strangely, as if unsure of letting it slide or calling campus security on her, but Emma ignores him.

‘we need a Charles too now’

‘you need to listen in class is what you need right now’

‘hey you’re not the boss of me!’

‘no but I’m the little angel on your shoulder who refuses to hear you complain during finals week’

‘#rude’

He doesn’t reply, but instead sends her five pictures of Ryan Gosling with the ‘hey girl you should be studying’ caption, and Emma has to turn off her phone so she doesn’t do anything embarrassing, like burst into laughter in the middle of her Introduction to International Law class. She shakes her head, and focuses back on Professor Hooper’s monotonous voice.

 

…

 

“Okay, let me get this straight.”

“There is nothing straight about you, Ruby.”

Ruby stops her pacing to glare at Emma, but her lips twitch a little with the amused smile she’s repressing, and Emma counts it as a win. That is, until Ruby starts pacing again – it’s all about being dramatic, really, because nothing called for such extreme measures.

“You met a guy on Tumblr because he ships the same obscure ship you do. He’s English, and apparently a musician, and you’ve been texting him for months?” Ruby stops in her track if only to run a hand through her hair and stare at Emma with wide, crazy eyes. “How the fuck did you swing that?”

Emma huffs a little, but she can’t exactly refute anything Ruby says when her phone lightens up with a Whatsapp notification at the same time she opens her mouth to say something. Which, obviously not helping, thank you very much Killian.

“We’re just friends,” is all she finds to reply, shrugging a little.

Because they are, okay – they waste a great deal of time gushing over the same book and complaining about their classes together, and he’s still just a friend. Hell, she doesn’t even know what he _looks like_ , and it seems like an important detail to take into account when you need to decide if you like a guy that way. Which she doesn’t. He’s just a really good friend.

“If you made a post about it, people would be all ‘omg I ship it’ and ‘imagine your otp’, just so you know. It’s just that obvious.”

Emma wants to huff again, because the conversation is getting more ridiculous by the minute. Hell, she doesn’t even want to have this conversation, but Ruby forced it on her when she saw her smiling at her phone for what is, apparently, _the thousandth time today, jesus, Swan_. Emma doesn’t think it particularly fair – Ruby smiles and laughs and even cackles at her phone all the time, and no one has ever said anything about it.

But it’s apparently different when it involves an English dude.

Go figure.

“I can’t have this conversation with you,” she says, standing up as she closes her laptop. She grabs her phone too, and one or two books, shoving it all in her messenger bag. She needed to work on an essay, anyway, so it’s all good.

“Are you going to Egypt?” Ruby asks, now grinning from ear to ear. “Because you’re in _denial_.”

Emma slams the door, for good measure.

She glares at the wall for a second or two before walking towards the elevator. It only takes her a few minutes to make the trek to the library, and then she finds an empty table, far enough from anyone else that it allows her to mope in peace, without anyone staring at her for being the lunatic who mumbles at her phone. Phone she still needs to check, and she hates Ruby even more for having a point – she can’t go on for long without having to check if Killian sent her a message, and being reliant on a guy is the last thing she wants to do.

Been there, done that.

Never again.

They’re just friend, she tells herself as she grabs her phone and her bag – she isn’t sure if it’s a fact, of if she’s trying to convince herself, at that point. She’s afraid it’s the latter. Emma hasn’t let herself develop feelings for anyone ever since Neal, two years ago, and she refuses to start with a guy living across the ocean. Even for her, it’s a new low.

‘I hate my roommate,’ she sends him before she even second-guesses herself. ‘she always makes a big deal out of things that are not a big deal and – ugh’

His reply arrives while she opens her essay’s draft on her laptop. Emma is proud to say she doesn’t pounce on her phone, because it would only prove Ruby right.

‘do you want to talk about it?’ he asks, with a worried emoji.

Technically, she knows he doesn’t believe in the friend-zone – they talked about it, once, and he had some very crude, very British words for his half of the world population. Technically, she knows that. It doesn’t make what she’s doing any more okay, but she really can’t help herself, at this point.

New low in her low.

‘she thinks I’m into some guy, even if I’m not, and won’t stop bothering me with it. which is stupid, I’m not into him. she just won’t leave me alone.’

‘well, that’s unfortunate’

Emma believes he will leave it at that – he should, really, because she isn’t comfortable with the kind of conversation that could ensue. So she flips her phone over, for good measure, and focuses on the essay she needs to focus on. Five pages. She has this totally under control, and sits a little straighter, a little closer to the edge of her seat, and starts typing.

She adds a page and a half to the two she already had before she decides that a break is well deserved at that point, and makes the mistake of checking her phone. Whatsapp is still open on her conversation with Killian once she has typed her password, and a new message awaits her at the bottom of the screen.

‘how have I never heard of this mysterious bloke?’

She scoffs, and rolls her eyes a little. ‘did you miss the part where I told you I’m not into him? why does it matter?’

Does she sound on the defensive? Gosh, she does.

‘he’s important enough that your best friend noticed.’

Period at the end. It sounds so final that Emma glares at the screen, like this little bundle of pixels offended her and her family for three generations. The jealousy she reads in that single sentence is probably just projecting, anyway. He’s a friend. Nothing more than a friend.

‘you never tell me about the girls you meet either.’

Period at the end, and two can play this game. Emma doesn’t care if her message sounds defensive (because it does), just as she doesn’t care why this particular subject has her all riled up all of a sudden. He’s just a friend, she tells herself, and it starts to sound less as a fact and more as an excuse.

‘who said anything about girls?’ is his reply a few moments later, and it takes all of Emma’s self-control not to cackle here and there.

‘you’re a musician with an English accent, don’t pretend there aren’t girls’

‘you do know having an accent is null when everyone around you have the exact same accent, right?’

And then, a few seconds later, ‘there are no girls, don’t worry’

It is those two late words – don’t worry – that have her losing it, more than anything. With a huff, Emma flips her phone over so she doesn’t have to look at the screen, then thinks better of it and shoves it in her bag instead – if she keeps it in on the table, she’ll be tempted to check for new messages, and she can’t deal with this right now. Or ever.

She fights back a groan, hands running through her hair, before she leans forwards and presses her forehead to the table. She hates Ruby for putting those ideas in her head to begin with – Killian is her friend, period. Why is it so hard to believe, why the permanent idea that a man and a woman can’t be friends without it always leading to more? Emma is more than fine with what she has now with Killian – the easy banter and teasing, the private jokes and long rants well into the night. It is simple, uncomplicated, and it suits her well. She doesn’t need gross, misplaced feelings to come and ruin what they have, especially on the grounds that she is horny and he is nice.

And, let’s be real, what even would be the point? Emma isn’t, has never been, relationship material, she knows it all too well. So a long-distance relationship would be doomed to fail from the start, and she doesn’t want to compromise her relationship with Killian when she knows it not to be worthwhile – all on the assumption that he has feelings for her, which is farfetched too.

They’re friends. They’re going to stay friends.

End of the story.

 

…

 

Finals come and go, as stressful as can get when you have to cram an entire semester worth of studying in about two weeks – Emma’s pride comes into place as she refuses to complain about it, if only not to prove some people right. By the end of her last exam, she feels exhausted enough that she could pass out and sleep for three days straight without waking up.

Of course, Ruby has other ideas. They’re going back home for Christmas break in a few days, which means they need – emphasis on _need_ – to celebrate while they can and while they’re still on campus. Which is how Emma finds herself in a too short dress and too high heels, in a cab driving them to Jefferson’s house.

Jeff is one of the few freshmen not to live in dorms, instead renting a house off-campus with two other guys, Victor and Billy. ‘Ex-boyfriend,’ Ruby says, and Emma doesn’t dare ask which one the brunette is talking about. Both, probably. Next to her, Belle rolls her eyes.

The house is already packed when they arrive, loud music barely muffled by the closed windows. Emma is handed a red solo cup before she even has time to say hello, or even to find someone she knows, and she stares at the drink for long seconds before discarding it and heading for the keg – if anything else, her sheriff of a father taught her how to handle herself during parties.

When she turns around, sipping on her cold beer, she isn’t surprised to see that Ruby and Belle have already disappeared – to make out in a corner or make a show of dancing in another room, who even knows anymore. Emma sighs a little, if only because she doesn’t want to stay alone. The last thing she wants tonight is to be hit on by some random fratboy, especially when all she wishes for right now is her bed and at least twenty hours of sleep.

It’s not exactly a fratboy she stubbles upon when she moves closer to the buffet table (a big name for one table with various salad bowls full of chips, doritos, and candy). Instead, she finds herself bumping into a guy, tall and athletic and not-douchey-looking. He smiles down at her, grey eyes kind and gentle, and her heart beats a little faster because he looks _cute_. You’re-welcome-to-bring-me-home cute, actually.

“Hey,” she tells him, a little lamely.

“Hey,” he mirrors, before laughing a little. “It’s nice to see I’m not the only one who feels out of place here.”

His voice is rich with an accent she can’t exactly place – Irish, maybe? – and Emma finds herself grinning back at him. It’s been a long while since she last flirted with someone, a too long while. Cute Irish guy is what she needs right now, even if he doesn’t know it yet.

“The things we do for our friends, right?” She holds out her hand for him to shake. “I’m Emma.”

“Nice to meet you, Emma. The name’s Graham. Do you want to dance?”

Which is how Emma finds herself with her arms around Graham’s shoulders as they sway to the music, a little out of sync because he keeps telling her the lamest jokes she’s ever heard in her life, and she keeps bursting into laughter, either throwing her head back or pressing her forehead to his shoulder. It feels good, easy – he’s nice and cute and funny, and it’s not too complicated to talk to him even with the loud music swallowing their words every so often.

He offers her another drink, and she shows him how to play beer pong against Jefferson, which is a small disaster in itself. Jeff is high as a kit, his pupils so dilated it’s a little scary, but it doesn’t make him any less of a fierce opponent, each ping-pong ball he throws hitting its mark. Emma drinks more lukewarm beer than she should, probably, her mind a little hazy around the corners as she holds on to Graham’s arm and laughs at his poor attempts at winning the game. He doesn’t land a single ball in a single cup, and Jefferson laughs at him too until he and Emma admit defeat.

She takes his hand and leads him outside – she needs the cold December air to clear her mind a little, and it’s a nice night, and there are too many people inside anyway. There are some people outside too, smoking pot and whispering to each other, but Emma ignores them as she sits on the first step of the porch, gesturing for Graham to do the same. He sits, pressed against her from hip to knee, and it feels good. The warmth of him feels good, even more so when he wraps an arm around her shoulders and pulls her toward him.

She knows he’s going to kiss him before he does, and she knows it’s a bad idea – they’re both too drunk and out of it, she’s exhausted, not in her right mind. It is textbook bad idea, but Emma doesn’t stop him when his lips brush hers softly. She welcomes him, with a sigh and another kiss, tongue darting out to brush against his bottom lip. They deepen the kiss, softly, tentatively, until she grabs his neck and opens her mouth to him, making the kiss more ardent, more feverish. He groans against her mouth and grabs her waist, just tightly enough for her skin to tingle under his fingers. It’s good, and nice, as far as first kisses go.

“Emma,” he breathes against her mouth when they break apart, his voice hoarse and deep, bringing a shiver down her spine.

Later, much later, she’ll blame it on the alcohol, and sleep deprivation. Right now, she can’t stop the way she replies, “Killian,” in a whisper, a little broken and a little wrecked.

She doesn’t even notice it, until Graham still under her hands, and moves away from her. She almost whines at the loss of contact – he’s so warm, the night is so cold – but he’s looking at her funnily and then he sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose. He shakes his head a little, too, and it dawns on her.

Her face in on fire as she looks away, shame taking over her body. “I’m sorry,” she says, even if it isn’t enough against the humiliation of the moment.

Graham chuckles, but it sounds self-deprecating. “Don’t be. Whoever he is, I’m sure he’s a lucky bloke.”

She opens her mouth – ‘this isn’t what you think, it’s not what it looks like, I…’ – but no words come out. She shakes her head, as if it would help, before standing up. Too quickly, the world spinning around her, but she doesn’t let it affect her as she mumbles another empty apology before running away from the scene of the crime and back inside. Finding Ruby and Belle isn’t all too hard, since they are indeed putting on a show while dancing in front of everyone.

Emma grabs Ruby’s forearm and her friend stops moving immediately, eyes widening as she takes in Emma’s state. Anger settles on her features in a matter of seconds. “Who do I need to kill?”

“No one,” Emma sighs, and rubs her eyes. “I want to go home.”

She sounds like a little child, perhaps, but she is past caring at this point. Ruby nods and takes out her phone to call a taxi, while Belle goes to grab their coats. They’re outside waiting for the car not five minutes later, and Emma presses herself against her best friend with a heartbreaking sigh.

“You were right,” she says simply.

Ruby is perceptive enough – or perhaps Emma is transparent enough, who even knows anymore – not to ask for details. She just gets it, and wraps her arm around Emma’s shoulders to pull her into a hug.

“I always am,” she says.

Emma snorts.

 

…

 

Christmas is always a grand affair at the Blanchards’ – Emma’s parents spending the day in the kitchen, the tree heavy with decorations, everyone forced to wear red hats all through the day. Emma rolls her eyes good-heartedly as she and Leo stuff themselves with cookies when their mother isn’t looking. Grandma Ruth arrives in the middle of the afternoon, as always, so Emma gets ready a little before that, putting on her best dress and making sure her hairdo is perfect.

She lets her grandmother pull her into a hug, and only huffs a little under her compliments. “You look so pretty as always,” Grandma Ruth says, and Emma bites down a laugh as Leo fake-gags behind her back, “Have you met a charming young man at the university?”

She tenses, only a little. “Not yet.”

“That’s cause she’s a loser,” Leo chimes in with a shit-eating grin.

“Leo, enough,” her father says as he enters the room, and pulls his mother into a hug. Leo complains, for the heck of it, and Emma kicks him in the shin when no one is looking. He kicks back.

They spend the evening bickering, half because it’s what siblings do, half because it’s their way of showing they really did miss each other with Emma away for college. It’s strange, not complaining about him to her parents all the time, and not having his video games as background noise when she’s studying. So Emma makes up for lost time, both with annoying her little brother and stuffing herself with her mother’s food. Being home really has its perks.

It’s late into the night when they’re finally done with dessert, and Emma kisses her grandma’s cheek before heading to her bedroom. Her belly is full and she feels light-headed on bliss and love. She smiles at herself in the mirror – her eyeliner has smudged, a little, and her cheeks are pink with laughing too much but. She looks good, she looks pretty.

Her eyes fall on her phone, on her bed, and she doesn’t second-guess herself as she grabs it. The champagne she drank tonight may be the liquid courage she needs as she turns on the front camera of her phone – she’s never been one for selfies, no matter how hard Ruby tried to change that, so she has to take several pictures before taking one that she doesn’t want to delete immediately.

She hesitates, only a second, before she opens Whatsapp. Liquid courage, and all that.

‘Santa’s little elf wishes you a merry Christmas,’ she writes, and sends it along with the picture.

She doesn’t expect the two little check marks to turn blue that quickly, and does the mental math in her head. It’s more than the middle of the night where Killian is, but she’s not really surprised that he’s still awake – he does have the most random sleep schedule ever.

Emma doesn’t exactly know what she expected when she sent her the picture, but it doesn’t stop the gasp from escaping her lips when he sends one back and – _shit_. He’s obviously lying in bed, eyes heavy with sleep and hair a dark mess on top of his head, smiling crookedly at the camera. He looks good. Oh, who is she kidding, he looks more than good, and her stomach is in knots from just looking at his picture.

‘I thought I was on the naughty list,’ he replies, ‘but that may be the best gift ever’

Emma blushes, and bites down on her lip not to grin like a fool. She also forces herself not to save the picture, even if she knows fully well a copy of it is already on her phone somewhere. Instead, she switches to her conversation with Ruby and sends a simple ‘oh no he’s hot’.

The following day, Ruby is still sending her ‘ahahahahahahah’ every twenty minutes or so.

 

…

 

“I need a favour.”

Emma looks up from her notebook. They’ve taken the habit of skyping together, which mostly is them doing random, mundane things while talking to each other. It’s as close to hanging out as can be, considering the situation, but Emma got used to it pretty quickly. Mostly, she rewrites her lectures notes so they’re all neat and readable, and she listens to Killian rambling about this or that thing. Sometimes, he plays the guitar. Sometimes, Ruby judges her from across the room. It’s a nice habit.

“Helping you hide the body is going to be a bit complicated,” she deadpans.

He smirks a little – he doesn’t roll his eyes, but it’s a close thing. “I need your address.”

Emma raises an eyebrow at that. It’s not that giving him her address would be that far a stretch – he already has her phone number, they’re skyping, and he knows where she lives slash studies. Killian won’t suddenly appear in the middle of the night if he knows that her room in on that floor of this building. And even if he does, Emma doesn’t put it past Ruby to kill him with her bare hands.

It’s just that it’s coming out of nowhere, and Emma being Emma, she can’t help but be suspicious about it.

“Why?” she asks, no quite able to hide her feelings.

Killian definitely rolls his eyes this time. “Come on, what about a leap of faith?”

Which is how, a few weeks later, Ruby drops an envelope on Emma’s desk. Emma isn’t used to receiving mail, so she never really bothers checking their mailbox, but Ruby is regularly sent products from brands that want her to advertise their stuff on social networks – shitload of followers and all that – so she’s the one to check the mailbox every couple of days or so. Emma ignores her raised, unimpressed eyebrow as she grabs the letter.

She opens it quickly. The paper is heavy and – oh god, is that _calligraphy_? Her eyes widen a little bit more with each word she reads, and she presses a hand to her mouth and nose not to let out a graceless snort. Ruby reads above her shoulder, and can only breathe out a simple, yet straight-to-the-point, “What the fuck?”

Emma laughs, because she can’t help it, the sound a little hysterical and nervous. “It’s a marriage proposal. In handwritten form.”

Of course, Ruby doesn’t get it – but then again, nobody would, it wasn’t even a private joke of theirs until now – but it doesn’t stop her from facing Emma, hands on her hips and judgmental pout on her lips. And, okay, all right, Emma deserves it at this point, because this thing is ridiculously cheesy and her heart is beating faster, and she’s pretty certain she’s blushing at this point.

“You still hellbent on saying he’s not your boyfriend?”

“He’s not. It’s just a joke.”

It’s the truth, but it doesn’t sound like one.

 

…

 

She sent him a simple ‘got your letter, still waiting for the three-month courtship’ and maybe it’s the most open she’s ever been about her feelings for him.

 

…

 

During the summer, Emma goes back home. Storybrooke is as uneventful as can be, and she misses Ruby so much that the girls have Skype sessions to watch crappy shows together even if they no longer share a room. It’s a little weird, not to mention a novelty, for Emma to miss someone so much – she was some kind of basket case in high school, and so didn’t really have friends.

She decides to find a job – and no, dad, she doesn’t want to answer the phone at the station – and good old Ingrid hires her to help at the ice cream parlour. It’s not exactly the most thrilling job, but it’s Storybrooke she’s talking about. None of the jobs in town are the most thrilling jobs. So she wears a sky blue apron and learns to make a scoop, and her cheeks hurt a little from smiling at the customers from eleven to six, four days a week.

Ingrid lets her eat all the ice cream she wants as long as she doesn’t get sick in the stomach, and she makes a little above minimum wage, so it isn’t all that bad. It keeps her busy.

Ingrid leaves her on Saturdays to work at the beach and makes more money, so Emma is alone at the parlour. Which is fine, she has it covered. She’s in the cold room when her phone chimes happily in her back pocket, and so she grabs the pack of butter pecan and closes the door before she checks her new messages.

Unsurprisingly, it’s Whatsapp, and Killian.

‘you work at any given sundae, right?’

Emma frowns at her screen. She’s told him she had a job for the summer, of course, but never went into greater details than ‘I sell ice cream, it’s awesome’. So, needless to say the message takes her by surprise, and leaves her more than a little confused.

‘yeah?’ she replies, typing the letters slowly as if her confusion could be sent along with that single word.

The two little blue check marks appear a few seconds later, but Killian doesn’t answer anything. Emma frowns at her screen some more before sliding her phone in her pocket. The front door’s bell rings as she grabs the pack of ice cream, and so she forces herself to forget about it as she goes back to work with her most professional smile.

“Welcome to Any Given Sundae, what can – _holy shit_.”

The ice cream doesn’t slip from her hands, but it’s a close thing because – holy shit because Killian is standing in front of her, all shy smile and scratching his ear and looking at her through his eyelashes and – _holy shit_.

She blinks at him, and gapes a little – if she blinks hard enough, perhaps he will disappear and she’ll blame her sleep-depraved brain. She did stay awake until 3am last night to binge-watch Wet Hot American Summer with Ruby, so she wouldn’t put it past her exhausted mind to just make things up for kicks and giggles. But she blinks, and he’s still here, and he’s looking at her with concern in his eyes, and _he’s here_ and –

“What the fuck?” she mumbles, more to herself than anything else.

“Surprise?” he says, with a little tilt of the head. His English accent is even deeper in real life, and the camera didn’t do his blue eyes justice and her brain keeps playing _he’s here he’s here he’s here_ on repeat. So Emma does what she always does when her mind stops working properly.

She runs away.

Her heart is racing against her ribcage as she locks herself in the backroom. She leans against the door and closes her eyes, forces herself to inhale by the nose and exhale by the mouth – something Belle showed her after learning about it in a yoga class, or something. Of course it’s not working, because all she can think is that Killian is still there, in the parlour, and he travelled all the way from freaking England to see her and it’s too much, it’s way too much.

“Do you want me to leave?” he asks, voice muffled by the door.

 _Yes_. “No.” She sighs, and screws her eyes shut once more. “You took me by surprise, is all.”

He chuckles a little, and the sound brings a shiver down her spine. Which, not helping, clearly. “That was kind of the point.”

She laughs, too, but it’s a little self-deprecating. Technically, she knows that she’s being ridiculous. They’ve known each other for months, he’s privy to most of her secrets. Hell, she trusts more than most people – she would trust him with her life, probably. But it doesn’t stop her from freaking out, because him being here makes everything oh so real; him, her feelings, their relationship. Everything is real and it slaps her with the strength of a hundred tow trucks.

She sighs, long and deep, before she stands a little straighter and turns around to face the door. Killian startles a little when she opens it, and then he’s staring at her, eyes wide and blue. She stares back.

“Hey,” he says, and offers her a tentative smile.

“Hi. Sorry,” she replies, a grin of her own blossoming on her lips. She raises a hand to her own face, points at her cheek. “You’ve got a scar.”

He raises a hand to her face, too, fingers wrapping around her jaw and thumb brushing the corner of her mouth. Her breath catches in her throat.

“You’ve got dimples. Like, two dimples each side,” Killian says, and she can only grin even more at that.

And then he’s pulling her into a hug, one arm around her shoulder while the other wraps around her waist. It takes her a little by surprise, but she recovers quickly enough to return the hug. She can’t help but run her fingers in the hair at the back of his neck, and his breath hitches against her head. She doesn’t fight back the grin.

“That’s so creepy stalkery,” she breathes against his neck in a weak laugh.

He laughs too, even as he takes a step back. “I actually came to kill you in a back alley. My plan all along.”

She slaps his chest, and he pretends to be both offended and hurt. It weirds her out – it’s one thing to see him making faces at her through Skype, it’s entirely different thing to see those same faces in real life. Her breath hitches in her throat a little, and she wonders if she’s on the verge of another panic attack. She wouldn’t put it past herself, with how overwhelmed she’s still feeling, but the last thing she wants is to freak out in front of him once again. She needs time, and mostly space, to process everything.

“You crossed the ocean for me,” she mumbles and, okay, maybe she’s already trying to make sense of this thing she calls her life.

Killian smiles at her, that soft crooked smile of his that always does things to her belly. It doesn’t help, at all. “Aye. That I did.”

When Emma laughs, it sounds a little hysterical and a lot like she’s losing her mind. Softness turns to concern in Killian’s eyes, before he nods understandingly. She both loves and hates him for how well he knows her, at that point, because one day it will be her undoing, but right now it is her saving grace.

“I’m going to check in at the bed and breakfast. I’ll see you once your shift is over?”

She nods – at least she thinks she does, things are getting a little blurry all of a sudden – and he smiles back before leaving the parlour. He looks at her above his shoulder one last time as he opens the door, and then he’s gone.

Emma presses her forehead against the cold glass of the showcase and lets out a sigh.

 

…

 

She puts scoops of rocky road into two pink plastic cups, with complimentary little plastic spoons, on her way out of the parlour. Her bones are aching a little, as always at the end of her work day, but she drags herself to Storybrooke’s only bed and breakfast, knowing she can’t delay the inevitable any longer.

The grandma at the reception desk doesn’t bat an eye as Emma climbs up the stairs leading to the rooms – everyone in town is used to the sheriff’s daughter doing as she pleases and, even if Emma doesn’t often use that to her advantage, it has its perks. She hears, “Second door to the right,” as she reaches the last step, and smiles to herself a little. It’s not exactly like Storybrooke has many visitors, even during the summer, but she didn’t see herself knocking at every door until finding his.

He opens the door after her second knock, like he heard her coming or something, and grins the moment their eyes meet. Her heart does a little fluttering thing, and she’s so doomed it’s not even funny anymore.

“I brought ice cream,” she tells him, a little too cheerfully, as she shoves one of the cups in his hands. “We can go to the docks if you want. The sunset isn’t until a few hours.”

He smiles wider, if it’s even humanly possible, and nods, before he grabs the keys on his bedside table and comes back to her, closing the door behind him. Their walk to the beach is mostly spent in silence, only breaking it to ask how his flight was – good – and if he’s suffering from jetlag yet – only a little.

They sit on a bench, facing the ocean, and Emma folds her legs beneath her as she takes a mouthful of ice cream. The cold chocolate brings a shiver down her spine, just enough to bring her back to her senses and to soothe her worried mind. This isn’t weird, she thinks, they’ve hung out dozens of hours before, it isn’t any different now that she can stretch her arm and actually touch him.

And gosh does she want to touch him.

She has never repressed her feelings, not once they were out in the open, impossible to bury, impossible to ignore. But she has never worn them on her sleeve either, never confessed them to him – it’s better that way, they’re friends, it’s good. At least it was – now, glancing at his profile, at the way his Adam’s apple bobs up and down, the wind in his hair… Now, she isn’t so sure anymore. It’s stupid, and unrequited, but he’s here and her heart beats a fast pace against her ribcage, painful and hard to ignore. He’s here, and she wants him.

“How long are you planning to stay?” she asks.

She needs to know, mostly because she needs to know how long she’ll have to endure her own feelings for him, how long she’ll have to fight them and hide them and pretend they are just friends. How long, until they go back to Skype and Whatsapp and Ruby’s sad eyes looking at her like she’s a lost cause.

Killian clears his throat, and scratches his ear. He doesn’t meet her eyes, so Emma frowns, dread settling low in her stomach.

“I wanted to talk to you about this, actually.” He closes his eyes, as if bracing himself, before turning around to face her. “I’ve been hiding something from you, for a while now. It’s not –” he adds quickly, when he sees her opening her mouth, “It’s not _terrible_ , really. I just –”

His stuttering, far from the smug persona she came to associate with him, would be adorable, if she wasn’t fearing the words he’s about to say next. She hears _hiding_ and she understand _lying_ and her minds just starts screaming at her, for being stupid and naïve and believing a guy could be different, this time around.

“Killian…” she starts.

He doesn’t let her finish. “I’m studying at Boston University this year,” he blurts out, fast, as if unable to keep the words to himself any longer. Emma gapes at him. “I’d already handed in my file before we met, I swear, it’s not – not as creepy as it sounds. It was either Boston or Los Angeles and…”

“You’re going to be here for a year.”

He smiles, crooked and tentative. “Aye.”

“An entire year. In my university.”

He nods, and raises both eyebrows mockingly, smug little shit that he is. Emma blinks at him, twice, as her brain tries to catch up on the information he all but threw at her face. It feels a little like a throbber above her head – loading, loading, loading – before she kisses him. _Loaded_.

She kisses him, because she can’t help herself, because he’s going to be here for a year and she’s going to be able to see him every day for a year, and it’s too much, and she’s kissing him. Killian gasps against her mouth, before he groans and deepens the kiss, hand on her jaw to tilt her head at the right angle, fingers in her hair and mouth hot against her.

He chases her lips when they break away, breathless and panting, so Emma giggles before she pecks him on the lips once more. She feels giddy with happiness, all of a sudden, the feelings bubbling out of her with little laughs and smiles as Killian strokes her cheek, presses his forehead against hers.

“How long?” she asks, ignores the hoarse edge of her voice.

Killian chuckles. “Long enough for it to be embarrassing.”

“That makes two of us,” she replies.

She has no idea how she’ll cope once the year is over, once he goes back to his own country. They’ve only kissed once but her world is upside down already, and perhaps it’s too much too soon, perhaps it’s crazy, but she doesn’t want to let him go. Never wants to let him go, so she grabs the lapels of his jacket, and pulls him into another kiss.

Killian all too happily obliges.

 

…

 

Emma doesn’t really plan to broadcast her relationship to the world – she’s far from the kind of person who makes personal posts after personal posts on her blog, after all. But, of course, it’s without taking Ruby and her bazillion followers into account. Ruby squeaks a little (a lot) the first time she meets Killian, and it’s only later that day, when she’s back in her dorm, that Emma notices the Instagram notification.

She curses Ruby, but the picture is beautiful – Killian’s arm around her shoulders and his nose in her hair, everything made more romantic with a black and white filter. It comes along with a cheesy caption, because it’s Ruby she’s talking about – ‘look who we run into at BU what a funny little happenstance’ – and it already has an insane number of likes and comments. Emma refuses to read them.

It only gets worse when she logs into Tumblr because of course Ruby would post the picture on Tumblr too and _of course_ she would tag them both just to make sure everybody knows who they are. Sometimes, Emma really hates her best friend.

She grabs her phone and calls Killian, and he picks up in record time, cackling. Emma really hates her boyfriend too. “You saw,” he states immediately.

“Jesus fuck,” she breathes, and he chuckles even louder. “I gained, like, forty new followers, what the fuck?”

“You need to check the tags on that picture,” he replies. “But first you need to read the ask I’m about to post… Posted.”

She reloads the page – it’s an anon message he was sent, straight to the point. ‘Are you guys aware you look like the real life version of Charleia?’ Which, Emma hadn’t thought about it before, but now it’s all she will ever think about. Great. They’ll probably need to cosplay that, or something. And to stop posting pictures of themselves, if they don’t want to end being use as someone’s fancast in edits.

Still she bursts into laughter when she sees Killian’s reply to that message, a simple ‘#lifegoals’ that has her shaking her head at her screen.

“You’re such a nerd.”

“Yeah,” he replies, voice all soft and loving. “But so are you.”

 

…

 

(He sends a request to study abroad yet another year.)

(He never leaves.)


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My friend Jen asked me for Killian's POV of the fic forever and a lifetime ago, and then my friend Alice decided to make [this lovely set](http://ezekiels.tumblr.com/post/151509220232/inbox-1-captain-swan-fandom-au) about the fic. Totally a coincidence, they don't know each other! Add to that the fact that I finished reading Fangirl last week and that was enough to get my writing juices going, so here's Killian's take on the story!

Killian is on Tumblr because it’s the place to be right now. Before that he was on LiveJournal. On Facebook (still on Facebook, if only because it’s so damn practical for classes). On Myspace, when being on Myspace was cool. He’s done it all. He has seen _things_ , man. So, yes, Tumblr was the next step into his life as part of a fandom. Of many fandoms. It’s a little like his secret identity, like Clark Kent if Clark Kent was making clickbait articles online instead of writing for the Daily Planet.

(And this, ladies and gentleman, is why he’s a nerd instead of the cool, aloof musician everybody at university believes him to be.)

His use of Tumblr is pretty mild. He follows a bunch of blogs, including a hilarious one for Bake Off memes, but keeps his own mostly about pretty pictures. He likes it that way, chooses what he wants to see on his dashboard and stays away from the crazy parts of fandom. If he only wants beautiful pictures of landscape, the historical part of Tumblr, and fanart of black Hermione, he knows how to. It’s easy, and he gets rid of annoying people in a click if he needs.

That’s how he meets darlingduckling, more or less. He follows two Norwegian sisters, mostly because one of them posts those amazing pictures she takes of the Scandinavian mountains where she lives, and the other is just hilarious – sometimes they even start bickering in a weird mix of English and Norwegian, which is even better. They’re just fun to see on his dashboard. One of them, the blonde one, starts tagging another blog more and more in her posts, and replying more and more to that darlingduckling person’s asks and text posts, and Killian grows curious.

The blog isn’t too different from his own – a mix of fandom and aesthetic, very minimalist. He likes it; he follows.

It is, as they say, the beginning of the end.

Because darlingduckling uses the tags. She uses the tags a whole fucking lot, rambling hilariously on pictures of Daniel Radcliffe and Anna Torv, and gushing over cats and ducklings, and writing almost-nonsensical poetry beneath pictures of mountains and oceans and empty streets. Sometimes people even reblog her tags, just because, and he finds himself reblogging that more often than not.

She follows him back, too, but they don’t talk. Mostly Killian doesn’t talk with anyone on Tumblr, because very few of them actually believe that he is a guy – or trust him because he is a guy. He understands, safe spaces and all that; he’s fine with it. He’s fine with just hitting the reblog button once in a while, or adding relevant information to anything having to do with history.

“This is sad,” Tink tells him one evening. It’s just the two of them and enough bottles of beer to get ten people drunk – Robin and Marian are out on a date tonight, and their fifth flatmate never gets out of his room, so it’s just Tink and him in their cramped living room, getting drunk. Not even motivated enough to get out and to the nearest pub, which is sad – and would probably get their British nationality removed, if people knew.

Killian turns around to frown at her, a silent question.

“It’s Friday night, and you’re flirting with a girl on _Tumblr_. Even for you, that’s a new low.”

Killian’s ears turn red and hot, but he still rolls his eyes at her. To keep a semblance of composure, or something. Because yes, he did send an array of messages to darlingduckling in his drunken stupor, just because he would never have the nerve to do it sober. He doesn’t want to be the creepy guy who flirts at girls on the internet.

Except now he’s the creepy guy who _proposed_ to a girl _over a book_ on the internet.

It’s a really good book, he tells himself. He read it in one go when it arrived at the bookshop where he works part-time, in all it black-and-red-cover glory. He can’t remember the last time he was that excited about a book, and he sells those – being excited about books is part of his job. But this one is different, new and exciting, and the internet is already buzzing about it. Killian is mostly following the flow, wondering if fuckyescharlesandleia is already taken.

(It isn’t.)

(Well, it is now.)

Tink takes his laptop away from him, and turns on the TV instead. They find reruns of the Graham Norton Show to watch, laughing at the bad jokes and drinking some more beers. He barely manages to stand up and go back to his bedroom, laptop dangerously close to slip from under his arm before he falls face-first on his mattress. He still opens it, mostly because he needs to turn it off for the night, and checks Tumblr out of duty. There’s a message awaiting him in his askbox, and Killian barks out a laugh when he reads it.

‘ _All wedding proposals are to be addressed in handwritten form and sent after a three-month long courtship. Sorry, I don’t make the rules_.’

He didn’t expect it from her. Actually, he didn’t expect anything, either for her to ignore or block him. Killian wouldn’t even have been mad about it, he only half remembers what he wrote but it is worth being blocked. Probably.

Instead he barks a laugh and moves his laptop closer to him, just enough for his long fingers to dance on the keyboard. This reply makes just as much sense as the first messages he sent, and it would be obvious to anyone knowing him how drunk off his feet he is, typing those words. But she doesn’t know him. She will just think he’s mad as a box of frogs – which, he is, mind you.

(When he wakes up a few hours later, hangover, mouth tasting like sand, she sent him a novel of a reply. She gets eight new messages in her askbox, just because.)

 

…

 

He learns that her name is Emma, she studies law at Boston University, and she hates Severus Snape as much as he does. Her online presence is almost non-existent, beside a twitter account where she mostly livetweets about shows and the weird people she encounters on campus. He also learns that she is friends with wolfieruby, which is apparently a big deal according to Marian.

Because of course Tink had to tell Marian, who told Robin, who now thinks he needs to wingman Killian at every party every weekend so he can find his mojo again. Killian wants to tell him there is no point, she’s just some girl halfway across the world and not a Milah 2.0 kind of situation. He doesn’t need to drink and forget.

He still follows Robin, if only because he loves spending time with his cousin in obscure London clubs and pubs. Sometimes a band is playing. Sometimes there’s a game on the telly. More often than not a girl flirts with him, but Killian always goes back home alone. He can’t remember the last time he got laid, or even kissed a girl just because he could.

Perhaps Robin is right.

Perhaps it’s a Milah 2.0.

 

…

 

He doesn’t realise how much of a problem Emma is until Christmas. They’ve been talking since February, messaging back and forth almost every day. Summer was particularly interesting, with her back in her little costal town and working for her father at the sheriff station, him doubling his shifts at the bookstore and adding some hours as a barman on top of it. She’s a constant in his life now, sometimes waking up at four in the morning to find her rambling all over Whatsapp. About her classes, the papers she has to write, her roommate’s antics. About Heroes and Villains. About Harry Potter. About anything and everything, opening her thoughts to him.

Which leads to Christmas.

Christmas is always a small affair at the Jones’. Both Liam and Killian go to their mom’s for the holidays, and they usually watch every Christmas special of every show, before his mother insists on watching Nativity! with the both of them. They huff and puff, but tradition is tradition. It’s a little past midnight when Killian finally goes to bed, but he doesn’t fall asleep yet. Instead, he Skypes with Tink, if only because she’s spending the holidays with her Aunt Blue, somewhere in the middle of nowhere next to Birmingham.

Her feed is a little sketchy, bad wifi and everything, but it’s enough for her to rant about how she hates her aunt and how Christmas sucks. Killian listens, for the most part, only adding a comment here and there. They’re used to doing so every year since they started living together, when they entered university and started living in the same shitty flat they’re still sharing with Robin and Marian today. Killian is all about Christmas traditions, you see.

He shifts on his bed at some point, lying down with his laptop on his chest. Tink makes fun of him, and his tired eyes, and he just wrinkles his nose at her in reply. She doesn’t tell him to go to bed, though, but Killian doesn’t take offense in that. Tink is a little needy at times, always wanting to have people around her. She hates solitude, and he’s always been there for her when loneliness creeps up inside her, when she needs someone to talk to. But she’s also there for him when he just wants to drink himself into a stupor, or when he spends hours after hours locked in his room playing the guitar. They work well together.

She’s telling him all about how Cousin Astrid finally found herself a boyfriend – ‘spinster’ definitely is a work Tink uses, as if her life is a Jane Austen novel – when Killian’s phone chimes by his side. It’s loud enough to cut off Tink in the middle of her sentence, and she raises an eyebrow when he grabs his phone. From the corner of his eye, he can see the raised eyebrow turning into a smirk – not that it matters much, when he’s left staring at his screen, mouth agape.

“What?” Tink asks. Then, louder, “ _What?_ ”

Killian can’t find the words to reply, to explain, so instead he turns his phone toward the camera of his laptop, to show her. To show Tink the selfie Emma just sent him, as casually as it goes. Tink hums a little in approval, but she doesn’t comment, not even when Killian goes back to staring at the picture.

He forced himself not to think in absolutes, up until now. It was easy to go “maybe I have a crush on her” or “perhaps in another life,” when he was thinking about her. Just a friend halfway across the world, the potential there but also not. He’s just a friend to her, he knows – a friend who got jealous not long ago when she told him about that other block, but still a friend. He forces himself to think about himself that way, because he can’t have Emma become a Milah 2.0. It was too painful the first time, it can only get worse from there.

“What are you waiting for?” Tink tells him, irritation in her voice. “Send her one back, you wanker.”

Which he does. Of course he does, it’s only fair – and it feels like something important, like a shift in their relationship. They can’t go back from there, he can’t go back now that he knows what she looks like, now that he’s wondering if her hair is just as soft as it looks, if her eyes are green or grey or both, if the dimples in her cheeks appear all the times or just for special smiles like this one. He wonders what she looks like when she laughs, when she wakes up in the morning, when she’s all grumpy and upset about boring lectures. It’s just a glimpse of her, and now he wants the whole package deal. He wants more than she can probably offer.

Tink hums ‘Can you feel the love tonight’ just when he’s about to take a picture, so he’s half-smirking on his selfie. Not his best look – his smiles are crooked and a little weird – but he sends it anyway, replying to her cheesy sentence by an equally cheesy one. She doesn’t reply, despite the two little checks at the bottom of his messages, but Killian doesn’t mind. He just scrolls back a little, and stares.

“You need to tell her,” Tink goes on.

He knows exactly what she is talking about, and shakes his head. “Not yet.”

Tink sighs. “You will have to tell her one day. Possibly before September.”

“Not yet,” he says again. Just not quite yet.

 

…

 

He has no idea why he decides to keep it a surprise.

It could very easily fire back in his face, and then where would that leave him? Alone in the middle of Maine, a month and a half before the beginning of the school year, not knowing what to do with himself. Which sounds like a rightful disaster, come to think about it but – but Killian still finds himself sending a private message to Ruby on Twitter, because he’s a moron. A moron who was raised watching too many Richard Curtis movies, probably.

Ruby started following him on Twitter a few months back (to check on him probably), when he and Emma started Skyping each other every few days. He could hear her sometimes, just off screen, doing her own thing on her side of the room or sometimes commenting on his conversations with Emma. She’s the kind of sarcastic person Killian gets along with easily, but they’ve never actually talked. Until today, at least.

_‘I need your help with something, but first I need you to promise me not to tell Emma’_

Her reply (replies) come up only a few minutes later, much to Killian’s surprise. It’s still early in Boston, and Emma told him Ruby isn’t much of a morning person. He didn’t expect a reply until a few hours later, at best.

_‘omfg I love secrets!’_

_‘are you a spy?’_

_‘are you a vampire?’_

_‘are you a VAMPIRE SPY???’_

He chuckles to himself, just a little, before he replies.

_‘I’m a werewolf spy, actually, but that’s not the point. the point is I’m coming to BU this september’_

Ruby’s replies come only moments later:

_‘OH MY GOD’_

_‘DID YOU TELL EMMA’_

_‘NO YOU DIDNT THATS WHY ITS A SECRET’_

_‘OH MY GOOOODDDDDDDD’_

And then, a few seconds later, _‘what do you need from me, romeo?’_

Killian smirks at the sudden nickname. He wonders what Emma told Ruby about him – what Ruby knows that he doesn’t. He’s guessed that Emma is into him at this point. He kind of understands why she doesn’t act on it – mostly the distance, but also something else, something that she doesn’t tell him but that he can see in her eyes when she looks away from her webcam, a little lost and distant. He never asks about her ghosts, the way she never asks about his – about Milah’s shadow following him, even after all these years.

He knows Emma fancies him – he also knows he’s so in love with her it’s painful sometimes. When she texts him at four in the morning and he only sees it the following morning. When she has a bad day and all he wants is to hug her, even if he can’t. When she goes to a party with her friends and he spends the night wonder if she’s meeting another guy, the jealousy eating him from the inside. When she smiles at him, all soft eyes and double dimples in her cheeks. When she asks him to play a song for her.

When, when, when…

_‘I want to surprise her this summer, do you think it’s a good idea?_

Ruby replies honestly, the way he’d hoped she would, _‘she’s going to freak out on you’_

_‘but you know, in a good way’_

_‘omfg I can’t believe you’re actually doing this’_

Aye, neither can he. Tink had cackled – actually cackled – when he told her, and she’s spent the last week making references to Hugh Grant movies. Not that he can blame her, because he has to admit his idea is straight out of a romantic comedy, the kind he used to laugh at when he was a stupid teenager.

In the end, Ruby gives him the name of Emma’s hometown, as well as a few more details – where she’s working this summer, and the fact that her father is the town’s sheriff. Killian already knew, but it’s a good friendly reminder anyway. She also reassures him about Emma’s feelings, though not in so many words, but Killian can read between the lines. If she knew Emma wasn’t into him, she wouldn’t let him do it – she’s not cruel enough to be an accomplice in Emma’s rejection.

At least, he hopes not.

 

…

 

His plane lands in Boston, so Killian decides to drop most of his stuff in his flat first. He’s paying for the rent all summer anyway, just in case things go sour with Emma and he needs a place where to stay until the year starts. And he doesn’t feel like going all the way up to Maine with his guitar anyway (which cost him an arm and a leg to take with him, but he couldn’t leave it in London). He doesn’t meet his new flatmates when he stops by to put his bags in a corner of his room and to take a shower.

Ruby sends him a text when he’s putting some clothes on, just asking him if he arrived in one piece. Killian smiles at her message, and how much she seems to care about Emma. Emma needs people like this, needs that kind of indestructible bond with someone – someone who isn’t him, mind you, even if he’s ever so grateful about the bond that exists between them, too.

He’s taking a coach next, one that will bring him all the way to Storybrooke, and so he grabs his duffle bag and leaves his room to go to the station. He doesn’t remember much of the journey, mostly because he’s too busy napping and getting startled out of sleep every time the coach jumps on the road, only to fall back asleep a few moments later. Jetlag is hitting him harder than he expected, but he doesn’t want to think about it too much – not until he finds Emma, at least.

Thankfully, the inn where he booked a room – the only inn of the little town, really – doubles as a dinner, so Killian gets to order the tallest, strongest cup of coffee they have before they give him the keys to his room. It’s a simple bedroom, a bed and a desk and a bathroom to the side. It’s more than enough especially since, hopefully, he will spend more time outside with Emma than inside alone.

(Or inside with Emma.)

(Let’s not be _too_ hopeful.)

He gulps down his coffee before looking around the room as his nerves finally start playing with his mind. This is it, the moment of truth. He tries to stall for a few more seconds, but he knows it to be useless – he knows he has to face the music now, no matter how anxious he is about it. So he grabs his phone, and logs on to the inn’s wifi so he can send Emma a message.

He is halfway down the stairs when he sends her the simple, yet somewhat cryptic, _‘you work at any given sundae, right?’_ Which. He is fairly aware of how creepy it may sound, but he guesses it’s still better than ‘hey I’m 2 minutes away from you, wanna hang out?’

At least, he hopes it’s better.

He’s second-guessing himself a lot today.

Thankfully, her reply (her one-word answer, really) arrives a few seconds later, when he still has enough wifi to receive it. Killian nods to himself before he puts his phone back in his pocket, then looks up to the shop in front of him. It’s an ice cream parlour like there are so many of them, all in pastel colours and bright lights, and the little bell above the door chimes happily when he enters. Emma isn’t behind the counter, and Killian takes a large breath when the door leading to the back room opens.

Then she’s here.

She’s here in front of him, hair tied up into a ponytail and baby blue apron around her hips. She holds a pack of ice cream between her hands, and it almost falls off her grip when her eyes land on him, widening immediately. He can only smile, lips tugging up crookedly as he takes her all in – she’s even more beautiful in real life, if that even is possible.

The curse rolls on her tongue immediately, and Killian smirks a little at that. Still, he remembers Ruby’s words, about how Emma would freak out on him no matter what, so he’s neither surprised nor offended when she indeed does exactly that. Her eyes widen even more, almost comically and, before Killian has time to say anything more than a very lame ‘Surprise?’ she’s running back to the back room and closing the door behind her.

Killian closes his eyes, and nods to himself, tongue darting out to wet his lips nervously. It’s okay, he tells himself, it’s not like he didn’t know that could possibly happen. It could be worse, though he doesn’t know exactly how right now. But it could be worse. Probably.

“Do you want me to leave,” he asks, loud enough for her to hear through the door.

She’s silent for long seconds, Killian counting to seven in his head, before she replies with a faint “No” that brings a tentative smile back to his lips. “You took me by surprise, is all.”

He can’t help by laugh at that, the chuckle surprising him. “That was kind of the point.”

He thinks he can hear her laugh too, but it’s too soft for him to be sure. And then he waits, and waits some more, staring at the tiled floor and wondering if it was a good idea after all. If he should just leave for now, and wait for her to come to him, like she is some kind of frightened deer you can’t look in the eyes if you want to pet it. Maybe he could message Ruby. Maybe she could help.

The door opens again, startling him out of his thoughts, and then Emma is in front of him once more. Her eyes are a little wary, a little scared, even when she moves closer to him, close enough that he could raise a hand and touch her. Her skin looks soft, he wants to feel it under his fingers – and her hair, damn he wants to run his hands down her hair and…

“Hey,” he tells her, soft, smiling.

“Hey,” she echoes, before she apologises. Silence falls between them, her eyes never leaving his face. She stares at his eyes, his nose, his mouth (his breath hitches a little), his everything. Like she is committing his face to memory, like she’s truly seeing him for the first time. Then she raises a hand, points to her own cheek. “You’ve got a scar.”

He chuckles softly at that, and resists the urge to tell her about when he was eight and tried to shave with his brother’s razor and only made a bloody mess of it until his mother found him and yelled so much she almost passed out. Not his finest moment, really.

Instead, he finally raises a hand to her face, cupping her jaw. She startles a little at his cold fingers against her skin (soft, just like he thought) but she doesn’t stop him, doesn’t move away. Her eyelids flutter a little, adorable, when his thumb brush against the corner of her mouth.

“You’ve got dimples. Like, two dimples each side.”

He knows them well, always stares at them when she grins so big the dimples appear on his Skype window. She grins now, as if to prove his point, dimples under his thumb. It’s too much, and not enough, and next thing he knows he’s pulling her against his chest, pulling her into a hug he doesn’t want to end. She smells like ice cream and sugar, and something spicier – cinnamon, perhaps.

She tenses against him, just for a moment, before she melts into the hug, her arms wrapped around his neck to pull him even closer. Her fingers start playing with his hair almost immediately, like she was always meant to do just that, and Killian can’t help the shiver that runs down his spine when her nails scrap against his skin. He forces himself to count backward from twenty, and to picture Tink’s aunt naked. Just in case.

“That’s so creepy stalkery,” she comments, her breath of laughter hot and tinkling against his neck.

He laughs too, and forces himself to take a step back instead of tightening his hold on her. Which doesn’t help, because seeing her face just makes him want to kiss the living hell out of her. “I actually came to kill you in a back alley,” he jokes. “My plan all along.”

She laughs and slaps his chest, almost indignant, and Killian fights the urge to grab her hand and to keep it against his chest. Instead he makes a face, falsely hurt, and it makes her smile. That is, until her eyes grow wide again, breath catching in her throat – too much at once, he can understand that. It must be even more overwhelming for her than it is for him, which is a lot. She’s a lot.

“You crossed the ocean for me,” she says in a small voice, like she needs to hear herself saying it for it to be true.

Killian only smiles, and nods. “Aye, that I did.”

Her laugh is different from the ones she usually offers him, more hysterical perhaps, tense and scared, and Killian knows better than to stay here. She needs time, and he’s going to give her just that – he has all the time in the world, at least until September. And even after that, if she wants, if she needs. He’s not going anywhere, not for a very long while at least. She can take it slow, he understands.

So he leaves her an out, one she accepts, before he turns around and goes back outside. Not before looking back at her above his shoulder (perhaps he wants to commit her face to memory too) and not before he smiles at her one more time. Her replying smile is weak, but soft and sincere. That’s all Killian needs.

 

…

 

Killian finds himself in Emma’s bedroom only one day later. He met her family pretty straight away – her mother nice and understanding, her brother reminding Killian of himself when he was a teenager, and her father giving him a proper interrogation, hand on the holster at his hip, until Emma rolled her eyes and pulled Killian out of the living room.

And now he’s in her childhood bedroom, looking curiously at the walls. There are posters everywhere, a real teenage girl bedroom – Harry Potter and Lady Gaga and every Green Day (“I was an angry preteen,” she tells him when he laughs. “That’s adorable,” he replies). A big teddy bear on her bed, and light purple sheets, an old home computer at her desk. But it’s the board above her desk that Killian is drawn to, and the hundreds of things pinned to it. He smiles at the pictures of Emma and Ruby, obviously taken by one of those new Polaroid cameras, and at the several concert tickets, most of them for obscure bands playing in even more obscure places in Portland.

And then there’s the letter. His letter, the one he wrote to her exactly three months after she sent him the Christmas selfie, the one that made Tink laugh until she choked on her own breathes. He still doesn’t know how his past self thought it was a good idea, to go full on Fitzwilliam Darcy and to write her a letter asking for the right to court her, properly, officially. She never replied beside a simple “Got your letter,” never gave him an answer. But she kept it, kept the letter and thought it important enough to keep with all those other bits and pieces of her life.

“Wow,” is all he finds to say, the words escaping his mind.

Emma smiles at the floor, red high on her cheeks. She’s been more opened with her feelings for him ever since their first kiss, like she finally allows herself to, but she’s struggling. He doesn’t know why, exactly, but it doesn’t come easy to her. But it’s okay, they still have time, they have nothing but time to discover each other, to ease into this new relationship of theirs.

She moves closer to him, though, until she’s hugging him from behind, her cheek pressed to his shoulder. Killian smiles, his hand grabbing hers where they rest on his chest. What she doesn’t express with words, she shows with gestures, and he’s fine with that. He didn’t expect her to be that cuddly, but it’s seriously the best thing ever. She’s all warm and soft, fitting perfectly against his body.

She doesn’t say anything, just keeps hugging him, so after a while Killian turns around in her embrace so he can hug her too. He’s slightly taller than she is, just enough that he can kiss her forehead easily, and she smiles when he does so, before she rubs her nose against his cheek – like she’s a kitten, and he keeps an ever-growing list of all the reasons why she’s adorable and he’s in love.

He manages to catch her lips, eventually, the kiss soft and lazy, exploring. She pulls him to her bed until she’s lying with him on top of her, making little sounds at the back of her throat. Killian reminds himself that the door to her room is still open, her mother in the kitchen. He reminds himself of this, and keeps his hands above her shirt even if he’s dying for them to explore the smooth skin of her back, her belly. Later, they still have time.

Instead, they find themselves cuddling on top of the covers, her legs tangled with his as she plays with his fingers. It’s not much different from their conversations on Skype – talking about everything and nothing at once, only now they’re touching, and she smells good, and sometimes she stops to kiss him, her lips brushing his before she smiles.

“I’m glad you’re here,” she tells him, voice full of sleep.

He smiles, and kiss her forehead. “I’m glad I’m here too.”

 

…

 

Emma and Ruby share a house with other girls, a little off campus. Killian tries to go there as little as possible, mostly because Merida loves to giggle every time he enters a room, like she _knows things_ about him, and it unnerves him. The other girls – Ruby’s girlfriend Belle, Gwen and Aurora – are fairly normal, but Killian can see it’s a _girls’ house_ and that, as a guy, he is not exactly welcomed here.

So he and Emma meet at the library to study, or on the campus’ park when it’s sunny, or in that one coffee shop she loves so much. They have dates, at the restaurant or the cinema, and she shows him around Boston. It takes about a month before she agrees to go back home with him, mouth hungry and hands hurried in their exploration of the other’s body. She laughs in between kisses, and sucks a hickey on his neck. The ‘I love you’ is pressed against his teeth, ready to roll on his tongue, but Killian swallows it down. Not yet, not now.

She falls asleep with her hand on his heart, his arms around her, and Killian decides it’s the best thing ever. He doesn’t want to go back from there; she’s it for him, he just knows it. He also discovers that night that she mumbles in her sleep, hogs the covers, and clings to him like a koala to its branch.

The following morning, he detangles himself from her as delicately as he can, not to wake her up. She mumbles something, still half-asleep, and he kisses her cheek softly, telling her to go back to sleep. She nods before she presses her face to the pillow, and her breathing evens out only moments later.

The coffee machine is already humming when he enters the kitchen, so Killian just rummages through the cupboards until he finds the cocoa powder he knows is hiding somewhere. He warms some milk once he’s found it, and puts some waffles in the toaster too. That’s when his flatmate enters the kitchen, hair still wet from his shower but thankfully wearing a shirt.

“Do my ears deceive me, or did you have a girl over last night?” he teases.

Killian does his best not to blush. “That’s my girlfriend and she’s still here.”

The other guy hums as he pours himself a cup of coffee. “Going fast, I’m impressed. Could you – oh morning, Emma.”

Killian turns around to find Emma in the doorway, staring at his flatmate with wide eyes. He frowns, his own eyes traveling from his flatmate to his girlfriend once or twice; it doesn’t help him with understanding the situation, though.

“Graham,” she breathes, with a frown of her own. “Huh – hi.”

Graham smiles around a mouthful of coffee, before he looks back to Killian. It’s like a light bulb suddenly switches on above his head, mouth opening in surprise. “Oh… _That_ Killian.”

Killian shakes his head, even more confused than before, before he looks back to Emma. Her cheeks are on fire, and she stares at the floor not to look at any of them, and Graham just chuckles softly, which doesn’t help at all. Killian is far from self-conscious but, still. He knows his flatmate is attractive, and charming, and he has questions. And perhaps a tiny bit of jealousy stuck in his throat.

Graham shakes his head, then leaves the kitchen – but not before stopping next to Emma, a hand on her shoulder. “I could never compete.”

She looks at Graham like she’s seen a ghost, before she moves closer to Killian. She takes the hot chocolate from his hands, electing to press her forehead against his shoulder instead of sipping from the mug. Killian doesn’t move at first, but then finds himself wrapping an arm around her waist anyway.

“Should I ask?”

She shakes her head against his shoulder, and sighs. “I knew I was into you when I kissed him.”

“Interesting,” is the only thing he says at first, still frowning. Then, teasingly, “It’s the accent, isn’t it?”

She pushes him away, and tells him he’s a moron. But she’s smiling, too.

 

…

 

“Are you planning to stay in the house next year?” he asks her, casually. At least, as casually as he can.

They’re both lying in his bed, him against the headboard reading a book Belle recommended him, her with her head on his belly and her laptop on her lap, browsing Tumblr. She’s put a playlist on, just movie soundtracks, and it’s peaceful – he loves those moments the best, when it’s just the two of them being lazy and in love, enjoying each other’s presence without the need to fill the silence with useless conversations.

She stops scrolling down her dashboard, looks up at him from above her reading glasses. “Maybe. Not sure yet. Why?”

He doesn’t close his book, staring at the words without reading them. His voice is light, perhaps a little too light, when he says, “We could find a place together instead.”

That gets a reaction from her, laptop closed and discarded to the side before she turns around, half straddling him so she can look at him in the eyes. He raises one eyebrow, teasing and challenging, but she just stares at him silently.

They’ve been avoiding the subject so well up until now – the hows and whats of him leaving and going back to London at the end of the year, the date looming over them a little more with each passing day.

“What.” It’s less of a question and more of a deadpan sound, really.

Killian offers her a half-smile, only one corner of his mouth tugged into a smirk. “I could ask for one more year abroad. The deadline is next week.”

Her mouth hangs opened for a second or two, before she attacks him with a kiss. The rim of her glasses bite into his nose and cheek painfully, but Killian doesn’t care, too busy deepening the kiss and pulling Emma closer to him, flushed against his chest. Her lips move to his cheek, his jaw, his neck, every inch of skin she can reach.

“Yes,” she pants between kisses. “Fuck yes. Don’t leave.”

“Never,” he replies, hand in her hair.

And he means it.


End file.
